


the only one in the world

by revolutionnaire



Category: Narcos (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 06:24:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17198201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolutionnaire/pseuds/revolutionnaire
Summary: He loves César. He does, plain and simple. He had known it, a solid, certain deadweight that bloomed heavy and sure in his chest, the moment they met all those years ago.





	the only one in the world

**Author's Note:**

> four years without writing a thing and now there’s 10,000 words of this tiny ship in a tiny fandom. spoilers for the entire first two seasons.

After they send Ana and the kids away, Eduardo realises he’s even less comfortable with the idea of César in that house all by himself, as sunny and beautiful as it is. So he brings that up as soon as they find some time to themselves, which more and more these days, seems to be in the backseats of cars surrounded by a motorcade of bodyguards and armed forces, and that only makes what César says next sound even more outlandish.

“Why don’t you come and stay with me then?” is César’s easy response, offered so casually you’d think he was just inviting his Head of Security over for dinner and not a month-long stay.

But César Gaviria is a careful man, and rarely did anything out of impulse, so against his better judgement, Eduardo agrees. 

 

 

Perhaps if they had been any other pair, the offer would never have been made. But because it is them, they manage to slip quite seamlessly into their new normalcy, with Eduardo setting up in the guest room of the Gaviria family home, just a few doors away from César’s own bedroom and a floor directly above his study. Eduardo takes note of this, as he does with all things, with all of his usual deft attention; marking them against the blueprints in his mind, isolating potential weak points, and filing away contingency plans-- things the usual security detail would have known already, but Eduardo finds it important to go over all of it by himself again.

Even so, accepting César’s invitation is, Eduardo tells himself for the millionth time that first week, the best and worst thing he could have ever done.

It’s the best because he does feel a lot better with César almost literally never out of his sight. Nobody is going to get close enough to hurt César when Eduardo can see him, he knows that much.

It is also the worst though, because César is almost literally never out of his sight, and if Eduardo thought he had it bad before, his heart is all but in tatters now.

You see, it was one thing to spend all his working hours in extremely close proximity with César. It’s another thing completely to spend all his waking hours in the same way, and worse still: his sleeping ones knowing César lay just a few rooms away. 

There are plenty of moments where Eduardo swears he just isn’t going to make it. That as much as he prides himself on his single-minded devotion to his job and his boss, he’s just not going to be able to handle any more of this. 

Nothing in his education and life had ever trained him for the feeling of walking through the door with César after a long day, or taught him what to do when he has to see César sigh and his shoulders slump as he lets the exhaustion wash over his body once they are safely ensconced within the walls of what was now their shared home. As much time as he had spent working through every possible scenario an election campaign could throw at them, there was something so different about César in the blessed privacy of his home, as though he realises it’s finally safe to reveal sides of him he’d never show anywhere else. And it still makes Eduardo’s head spin that he would do it all with Eduardo at home with him.

So no, not for a single day longer, Eduardo would think, can he do this anymore.

The nights are even worse. The nights, for example, when he tries to fall asleep to the sound of César in his study; the rustling of pages as he reads, the soft fall of bare feet and the occasional clink of ice in a glass over the strains of a Beethoven piano sonata - always played softly out of consideration for Eduardo, who should be asleep and not listening to the sounds of César living, right next to him. Or the nights where he fixates on the fact that all that separated their vulnerable, sleeping forms was just a few walls and doors down a hallway. César _slept_ there, alone in his bed; and Eduardo not more than twenty paces away. How ridiculously simple, but how unbearably intimate and infinitely precious those slivers of knowledge are. Eduardo lies awake and thinks about it all.

Of course, nothing will ever come of this because Eduardo will do nothing. 

When you cared about someone, he reasons, when your entire existence is designed to protect them, you protect them from everything - not just from threats to their life, but everything else as well. Threats to their stability, their happiness, the normalcy of their existences, from anything that could cause them trouble or anything that could complicate the already difficult lives they lead.

And confessing his feelings would certainly be a lot of trouble. 

So Eduardo will never do anything. Not even that one time - that one time that still comes back to haunt Eduardo on late lonely nights - when he thought he could have. 

They had been in the car, during one of those rare times when Eduardo would get dropped home first before César. It had been very late, Eduardo remembers, and a particularly grueling discussion had taken a lot out of the both of them, left them a bit raw and exhausted and uncommonly silent all throughout the ride.

“Goodnight,” Eduardo had said, when the driver pulled up in front of his apartment. Not thinking he was going to get a response, he hadn’t waited for one, and instead moved for the door-- although something deep inside him had kept him from actually getting out of the car. 

It was the look in César’s eyes.

The same weight that gripped Eduardo appeared to hold César in place too, and he had sat there unmoving, all the tension and gravity held tight in his compact form. César had looked steadily at him with a gaze so strangely charged with a kind of unidentifiable intensity, Eduardo could feel his pulse start to race and his skin begin to heat right then and there in the cold dark of the night. 

“Goodnight,” César had said at last, but he had spoken so slowly and the expression on his face so unfamiliar that it kept Eduardo rooted where he sat. It had felt like forever; his fingers just resting on the door handle with his body refusing to move.

He couldn’t shake the feeling then, and still can’t now, that they were both waiting for something to happen. There was something not normal in the way César had been looking at him, his eyes unveiled in a way Eduardo had never seen before-- almost looking like he was begging Eduardo for something. Then again, perhaps he was only mirroring what he saw in Eduardo’s own eyes: all the unabashed want and self-control that kept him all twisted up inside all the time. Whatever it is, Eduardo will never know.

What he does know is this: In that moment, Eduardo had been certain that he could have done anything he wanted and César would have let him. Could have touched César, or held him, or maybe even kissed him and he knows César would have gone right along with it. 

But Eduardo - Eduardo had done nothing, because that’s what you do when you love someone that you aren’t supposed to. You don’t waltz in and fuck up their lives and their happiness with your own selfish feelings, no matter how justified they may be, no matter how impossible it is not to. You just don’t do it. Not if you loved them.

And he loves César. He does, plain and simple.

There had been no slow, dawning realisation over the years of their acquaintance. He had known it, a solid, certain deadweight that bloomed heavy and sure in his chest, the moment they met all those years ago. It was by the end of their first conversation that Eduardo knew this was the person he would love for the rest of his life.

Of course, awareness of a fact doesn’t necessarily mean acceptance, and that was what it was like for Eduardo in the first few months. It wasn’t just unprofessional, it was downright impossible, he told himself. Ashamed, he had buried his feelings as deep as they would go, even though he had been certain they would eventually seep out somewhere along the way. And perhaps they had. Perhaps that’s why César looked at him the way he did.

But by now, after their years together, he’s largely stopped trying to fight it. Nothing’s imploded yet, so he figures whatever he’s doing right is working out well for them. Their constant companionable nearness and respect soothed his empty, aching desire. And so, he turned his love into a depth of devotion-- a devotion that ran so deep, trust came as easily as breathing to the both of them.

Now he can look at César from across the room, see him in his lounge clothes and his messy unstyled hair, last thing at night and first thing in the morning, and not feel like he was dying inside from want.

 

 

When he wakes up, César must be in bed with him, because Eduardo is warm and his senses are filled with the smell of him. Stirring awake, the haze of sleep slowly clears and he realises that he must have slept deeper than he intended because a) he’s not in bed at all, but on the old tired couch in César’s office and b) of course it’s not César, but his jacket, draped carefully like a blanket across his chest and shoulders. 

He’d dwell on that fact a little longer - the fact that César had taken off his own jacket and covered his sleeping body with it - if they were anywhere but in the middle of an election campaign that was literally a matter of life and death. Right now, the room is dark and quiet and he doesn’t know where César is, he realises with a rising panic. 

He never should have gone to sleep at all, no matter how many hours they had spent working without rest. Why did he allow César to talk him into taking a quick nap on the couch in the waiting lounge? If that man had decided to take a walk on his own—

“César?” Eduardo calls out to him, trying to keep his voice level despite the quickly choking fear in his chest. It’s not ridiculous that he starts to panic as soon as his charge is out of his line of sight for more than a minute, he tells himself. Look at what had happened to Galán. 

“I’m here,” comes César’s blessed voice from somewhere deeper in the office, and Eduardo is not prepared for how soft and intimate it sounds in the dark. 

“Did you sleep well?” comes that voice again, with no sign of its owner. Eduardo can hear the amusement in it despite the softness.César is probably gracefully giving Eduardo the time he needs to collect himself, having picked up on his Head of Security’s (completely justified, Eduardo thinks) moment of panic. 

With any immediate danger out of the way, Eduardo can let his mind linger on the mental image of César taking the time to remove his own jacket and place it across his sleeping body. He dwells on the intimacy of the act, how César might have looked like as he had done so, how wonderful it would have felt to wake up embraced by him.

“Well,” he says, not expecting to sound so rough and embarrassed. “Maybe too well.”

And just like that, César appears silently through the doorway, a fond smile on his face. He always moved so quietly, like a small cat in the dark, Eduardo thinks. He’s always loved this about César; his graceful compact strength, so neat and in command, so measured and regal ( _presidential_ , he corrects himself) - unlike Eduardo, who is long and lanky and completely graceless in his suits that never seem to fit him properly. 

Eduardo, to his own horror, is still clutching César’s jacket close to his heart. He holds it out hurriedly, hoping he’d had the sense of mind to wipe the sappy look he’s sure was on his face just seconds ago.

“Thank you for this,” he says, only a little awkwardly.

César ignores his outstretched hand and instead sits heavily on the couch next to him. It’s a position they’ve shared many times in the past, usually to go over the draft of some speech or other, crowding in over the masses of documents and sitting close enough that their thighs pressed up against each other.

“You looked cold,” he says, still smiling as he pats Eduardo companionably on the knee.

 _Looked?_ Eduardo’s damned mind has time to wonder. _Had César been looking at him as he slept?_

Instead of taking his jacket back, César turns and Eduardo assumes that means he should help him into it. So he does. He shakes it out before placing it across César’s shoulders. He carefully guides his right arm in, then his left. When the jacket is back on, Eduardo puts his palms on César’s shoulders to smooth out the fabric there, feeling the tenseness underneath and wishing he could do something to ease it.

“I didn’t want you to fall sick,” César continues, still not moving. Eduardo’s hands freeze where they had stopped on his shoulders. There is that weighted silence between them again, just like that night in the car, before César speaks.

“You know,” he says softly. “I can’t do this without you.”

Eduardo says a prayer of thanks for the fact that César’s back is turned, because that means they can’t see each other’s faces and César will never know what he looks like in that moment. His hands go cold and then hot and then they tighten their grasp against César’s arms, just a little.

Sometimes he just has to wonder - did César really know what he was doing to Eduardo when he did things like this, when he said things like this? And if he did, then why did he continue to do them? It could just be wishful thinking on Eduardo’s part, of course. But there had been so many times over the course of their acquaintance where moments like these - like the times he catches César looking at him, whatever going on in his mind inscrutable behind the oddly intense expression on his face - would get him thinking that that maybe there was a possibility that there could be something more than professional between them.

“I wouldn’t do this without you either.” It’s all he trusts himself to say in return.

César laughs then, low and weary but grateful. He gets up and holds his hand out to help Eduardo up.

“Let’s go home,” César says.

As Eduardo moves to make the arrangements, he fights the twist in his chest against how right that sounds.

 

 

The next morning, they don’t have to go to work and César makes him breakfast. 

Eduardo, who had been fully prepared to take the rare off-day to go to the bookstore down the road, happily gives it up in exchange for sitting with César in his sun-soaked kitchen, taking in both the delightful sight of fresh, proper coffee on the table and the painfully endearing one of César in an apron at the stove, tentatively prodding at something in a pot with a well-used spatula.

“I’m rusty,” he says, almost shyly, turning to look at Eduardo and smiling at the delight on his face. “So I sent one of the guys to get some things from the bakery if the _changua_ doesn’t turn out good.”

And if a little of the immense love Eduardo feels right then shows through in his eyes, this time he finds he doesn’t care.

 

 

Yet, for all the connection and trust and other unnameable things between them, a world in which Eduardo Sandoval dates César Gaviria makes no sense.

He tries to imagine their life together and even pretending his current marriage and family didn’t exist, it’s still hard to visualise how they work as a - because he is an idiot, he blushes just thinking about it - couple. What would they do, he wonders, go out to movies together, go on trips to see the world or dance together?

Relationships had never been something he was ever any good at, and it barely surprises him when he realises his with César is his most enduring and meaningful one. 

If things went on exactly as they are now, he would be pretty happy. Happier than he ever imagined he would ever be, if he’s being honest. If they could just continue as they are, that would be more happiness than he could have ever dreamt possible.

He supposes the truth is that César really is the best person he’s ever met, and likely ever will. There would be no topping him, Eduardo knows. No one else in this world would ever instill the same devotion, admiration, and love - yes, love - that César does in him. César is wonderful. His sharp mind, the carefully considered way he spoke, the subtle elegance that underpinned everything he did, the strength of his convictions, and the kind courageous heart in him that didn’t dissuade Eduardo’s fiery protectiveness, but encouraged and appreciated it. 

He believes in César so much; as a politician, as a superior, as a person. So much - more than anything else in his life - that he’d never thought it was possible to feel such sheer trust in another human being. It’s a liberating, enlightening feeling; the sort that fills you with purpose and strength and makes you feel like you could soar over any obstacle unscathed.

Those were the feelings, he imagines, that made him seize César’s hand on that awful day in the cemetery after Galán’s funeral and raise it into the air like it was his to do so with at all; sealing and maybe dooming his fate forever-- the man he loved more than anything in the world.

 

 

When they find out César is actually going to become President, the office erupts in a blaze of celebration. Months of stress and fear and grief give way to relieved joy, so Eduardo hangs back and allows others to crowd César for once. Security around the building is as high as it’ll ever be - Eduardo had seen to that personally - and he figures they should take the congratulations and good cheer while they can. 

He loiters around the small spread of food they’ve set up in the office pantry, making sure he isn’t hovering over César’s shoulder as he usually is, the way he’d spent the past few gruelling months. He can imagine what everyone else would think if he did so: _there’s that Sandoval, always watching Gaviria, you’d better be careful around him; he’s the real one you should worry about. Gaviria’s guard dog can’t even let him have a party in peace. You’d think he owned him, or something._

As though César can sense Eduardo’s rapidly spiralling thoughts, he searches him out so their eyes meet across the packed room, in between well wishes and glasses of champagne. He keeps this up throughout the celebration, and each time they do, Eduardo feels the knots in his gut ease a little.

It’s always like that, with César. 

He could quiet Eduardo with a touch, discern what he was thinking with a single glance. But running alongside the deep calm that César brings, as ominous and certain as the tide follows the moon, is also an overwhelming fear of how fragile he is, how easily anything could hurt him.

César breaks free as soon as he’s able to and makes his way to Eduardo’s side. Finally returned to him, Eduardo is more comforted than he’ll admit. He lets the warmth of César’s presence wash over him, and basks, shielded again, in that safe familiar bubble that comes when it’s the two of them. He’s gotten so, so used to this, he doesn’t want to imagine what it will be like on the day when it has to end.

César is standing close enough that their shoulders bump when he turns to face Eduardo.

“Everything okay, Eduardo?” 

Eduardo touches his glass to César’s in a small toast, so lightly it doesn’t make a sound.

“All good, Mr President,” Eduardo smiles. César’s returning smile is the warmest, most genuine and beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life.

“This is all because of you, you know,” César says softly.

“It could never have been anyone else,” Eduardo replies, meaning it with all his heart.

“Well, don’t think you can leave me now,” César warns jokingly. 

Eduardo looks at him, right into his eyes, and puts all the love and sincerity he can into what he says next.

“Never,” he promises.

 

 

Of course, César becoming President means he has to move into the Palace, and that means there’s no more need for a live-in Head of Security. Not when he has the entire Presidential Guard Battalion at his command. And especially not, Eduardo remembers, when that same Head of Security now has to become the next Vice Minister of Justice.

He’ll have to move too, probably somewhere closer to the Palace, but for now, he won’t admit how jarring it is to go back to his own sparse apartment after the month spent in César’s home. He’s not lonely, he tells himself, it’s just strange to live alone now. It’s so quiet, for one, and he can’t shake the feeling that there’s something fundamentally missing that no amount of late night television and books can replace.

The change leaves him with a feeling not unlike jetlag, which is why he’s just as baffled as César is when they meet at work the first morning after César moves into the Palace proper.

“You’re here,” César says with some relief and surprise, even before Eduardo has walked into his new office.

“I am,” Eduardo says, furrowing his brow and pausing in the doorway, already rapidly going over his schedule in his head to see if there was some meeting somewhere he had forgotten about. There isn’t. “Where else would I be?”

César shakes his head, a little sheepishly. “No, it’s nothing. I had a bad dream last night.”

To Eduardo’s raised eyebrow, he explains. “I dreamt someone captured you. I was trying to save you but I just couldn’t-- I couldn’t find you.” He frowns, as though he’s trying to excise the memories. “Told you, just a bad dream.”

Eduardo’s heart gives the tiniest of skips. “I’m here,” he says, unable to keep the smile from his face.

César laughs lightly, relieved and tender. “That’s good,” he says. “I’m glad.”

Eduardo doesn’t think about what they must look like, standing in the doorway facing each other, silly smiles on their faces, oblivious to the bustle around them. He doesn’t think about the fact that César has nightmares the first night they sleep under different roofs. He doesn’t think about any of that at all.

 

 

Eduardo has sworn his devotion to César more times than he can count over the years, proclaiming his trust whenever he felt that César needed to hear it said aloud. It’s not often, because César never loses his composure unless something of considerable magnitude has shaken him. And then Eduardo will tell him: always, as long as it was the two of them together, things would be okay. He’ll go over their promises like a prayer - _I would follow you anywhere. I trust you. I believe in you. You know that, don’t you?_ \- and just like that, they find calm.

On no other night does it matter more than tonight, the night he comes back from La Catedral.

The first thing that registers in his frazzled mind when he gets out of the prison is a phone thrust in his face even before the paramedic has her hands on him, César on the other side demanding in tight strange tones if he’s okay, if he’s hurt. Eduardo hangs up when César is satisfied, and then he spends the journey back to Bogotá in a blur, a little shaken and sore but otherwise cleared by the swarm of paramedics that had looked him over.

That barely lessens the surprise when he sees that César is waiting for him (definitely against advice, he thinks) in his living room. It shouldn’t actually be so unexpected, he realises belatedly, but he’s so exhausted and shaken from the ordeal that he had hardly registered the meaning of those unmarked cars outside his apartment, writing them off as extra security detail that César probably assigned to him for the night.

César also looks like hell, to be honest. Still as beautiful as ever, Eduardo thinks ridiculously, but more worn out and drawn than Eduardo has ever seen him.

“Eduardo,” César says as soon as he sees him, going straight to Eduardo and pulling him into a desperate embrace before Eduardo has a chance to ask him how the rest of his night went. From the way César looks - his tie and vest long gone, his usually immaculate shirt a mess of wrinkles - not good, Eduardo thinks as he brings his arms up to return the hug. César’s collar smells of cigarette smoke, another bad sign.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says into Eduardo’s chest, his voice strained as though all the things he couldn’t say on the phone are ripping their way out of his throat and into the space between them.

Eduardo, who until then had been standing dumbstruck in César’s arms, pulls back a little in dismay. He can feel César’s usually strong shoulders shaking - with relief or fear or tears, he’s not sure. At the movement, César raises his head at last to look, searching, into his friend’s face.

“Please don’t apologise,” Eduardo manages, feeling like he’s about to die under the weight of César’s gaze. “I believe in you. And you know I would have done exactly the same thing.”

César’s arms are still flung tight around his body; this is the closest they’ve ever been and Eduardo’s mind can barely keep up with the sheer physicality of it. César is so, so warm against him, and so much smaller in his arms than he ever thought he would be. And if that night with César’s jacket had kept him up for so many lonely nights after that, he can’t imagine what this embrace is going to do to him. His poor heart probably can’t take much more, he thinks absently. Just when he thought he had it all figured out.

He is still panicking about the complete upheaval of his life when César makes it all worse by kissing him.

Later - and Eduardo will regret this more than almost anything in his life - he will not forgive himself for the fact that he only remembers how it happened in fragments, that he’d spent the kiss in such disbelieving joy that he’d barely remember how it felt at all. He remembers César’s tired red-rimmed eyes looking into his, so very close, and then César’s hand finding itself at the nape of his neck, pulling suddenly, and finally, magically, lips against his. 

César kisses beautifully. His mouth is warm, his lips are soft and a delicious contrast to the scratch of stubble, but he is firm against Eduardo, a tight force that keeps them pressed together chest to chest and sets Eduardo’s nerves aflame. As he deepens the kiss, César pushes close, so close as though he’d walk right into Eduardo‘s body, settle down and take his place snug in the very core of him, right in his heart if he could.

“I would never have sent you into that prison,” César says, anger colouring his voice for the first time. His palms feel like they are burning hot and desperate, searing themselves into the skin of his neck. Eduardo can only cling to him in return. “Never. Not if I had known that Escobar still had free reign there. I need you to know this, Eduardo. I thought he was in custody, I thought you would be safe.”

The surge of love that hits Eduardo then nearly takes his feet out from under him, but he finds the strength to press another kiss to César’s mouth. “I know,” he says against him, feeling César sigh softly in response.

“Is this how you feel all the time?” César laughs humourlessly. “My god, I thought I would die worrying about you. I thought I was doing the right thing until I did it. And then it was too late to call it off.”

Eduardo tries to quiet him, about to convince him that he did make the right choice and that he did do the right thing, but César doesn’t seem ready to let it go.

“I didn’t even get to say anything to you on the phone. If anything happened to you and I didn’t even get to talk to you--”

“I would have died for you,” Eduardo says, not even surprised at the conviction that surges so strong in his veins. In the short hour he had spent trapped in La Catedral, surrounded by guns and Escobar’s taunts and threats, nothing had been clearer. That revelation had cut through the panic and the gunfire of the the final terrible siege, and calmed him even as his mind struggled to accept that the awful silence of César on the phone could be the last thing he ever heard from him. But that clear, calm certainty-- anyone would be blessed to experience that, he remembers thinking. Even just once in their lives, and Eduardo had already gotten years of it.

César shakes his head.

“You saved my life so many times,” César says, his voice so low it’s almost inaudible. He’s refusing to look at Eduardo, his eyes fixed stubbornly on a point just behind him. “And the one time your life is in my hands I nearly kill you.”

He sent in Special Forces, Eduardo thinks, grimly and unbidden. César knew the risks, and he had been prepared for it to happen. He’d been prepared for Eduardo to die. 

Escobar’s words come back to him, faint and taunting. _If he dies, it will be at the hands of his own government._ Of his own President, was the unspoken implication. He would die at the hands of the President he had sworn his life to; how Escobar must have relished that awful irony. Eduardo wouldn’t put it past Escobar’s terrifying insight o realise exactly how devoted the Vice Minister of Justice really was to his President. And he wouldn’t even have been wrong.

“That’s why you’re the president between the both of us, no?” Even in his exhaustion, Eduardo manages to smile for César. Eduardo has always known the right thing to say, and he wants desperately, now more than ever, to lift him out of this fugue of darkness and doubt-- perhaps because this time is the first time he is the source of it.

“You are the greatest thing in my life,” César confesses then, burying his face in the space between Eduardo’s neck and shoulder. “You know that, right?” 

Eduardo knows. He knows this the way he knows many things, more than he knows what to do with. He knows how few things relax César like a pair of new socks, that he only ever wears red ties now when he has a big event, that his voice wavers a little every time he talks to Eduardo about trust, and now, that he has kissed Eduardo of his own volition.

But this is something different, and the awareness stokes something deep inside him. One immutable fact sears itself into his brain and scares him more than anything ever has: the fact that he’s never going to be able to go back to a life without César in it, not when he knows now what it feels like to hold him, to kiss him. He knows the swell of his lips and the heat of his tongue; the press of his hands and the feel of his body growing insistent and desperate, the taste of his mouth and the scent of his skin.

At the same time, he also knows he’s down right terrified of what this means and how it’s going to change them. 

Perhaps his mind can’t deal with the implications of this right now and needs to find something else to fixate on because he’s suddenly aware of how unpleasant he must smell - like sweat and gunpowder and blood and smoke. He tries to pull away, making apologies that César will have none of.

“Take a shower if you want,” he says against the skin of Eduardo’s neck, breathing in deep as though to prove a point, although all it really does is send trills down Eduardo’s spine. “I’m just happy you’re here at all.”

“Stay until I finish showering then,” Eduardo says, as firmly as he can to someone nuzzling his neck. He only ever dared to be this direct when it comes to matters of safety. “Then I can walk you out.”

“Escobar is on the run,” César says grimly. “Whatever revenge he surely wants will wait until he’s more settled. It won’t be tonight.” But he settles down to wait anyway.

Eduardo doesn’t worry about what to tell the security detail posted outside. These late nights happened frequently enough on the campaign trail and even more so now that it’s not odd that they spend so much time alone and so late into the night. It’s only the two of them who know something has changed; nobody else would suspect that it’s something different that goes on behind their closed doors now.

The shower passes in a blur of steam and hot water. He barely remembers going through the motions. The only reminder is how his skin smarts where he had scrubbed roughly to wash off the filth of his ordeal. When he finally finishes, he comes out to find César perched on one of the stools at his kitchen counter with a cold glass of clear liquid in his hands.

It’s funny how much more vulnerable he feels in his damp hair and old t-shirt and sweatpants than he did under the guns of Escobar’s men at La Catedral. 

César is looking at him openly with a hunger that he didn’t think he could possess. He’s seen so many different looks and emotions on César, but none quite like this. The air bristles with it, this raw unveiled want that seems to turn the space between them into a vacuum with no room for anything else. Everything about César - the look on his face, the set of his shoulders, his eyes dark with determination - everything but his voice is calling Eduardo to him.

So, unable to resist, Eduardo goes to him. 

He should be keeping his promise to escort César out, but Eduardo cannot help what happens next any more than he could have helped falling in love in the first place. 

They meet with more kisses, Eduardo curving the length of his body around César’s seated form. _I can protect him like this,_ he thinks feverishly. He allows himself to revel in the familiar scent of César’s cologne and under that, the warm musk of his skin. César’s mouth, so sweet and slick against Eduardo’s own, tastes clean.

“Just water?” Eduardo asks, gesturing at the drink left to condense on counter - under a coaster César had found, of course. Eduardo had assumed that César had helped himself to something from his admittedly lean liquor collection. 

“I don’t want to forget anything,” César says softly, leaning up to meet his mouth again as he curls his fingers in the hem of Eduardo’s shirt to pull him even closer.

The fabric of his pants is very, very thin, Eduardo realises with a sudden panic, and he’s not going to be able to hide how badly he wants César for much longer. For what it’s worth, César doesn’t seem to mind. He presses his body right up against Eduardo’s front, dragging a moan from his lips.

It only seems to encourage César more, who is pushing closer and closer, his breath coming fast and hot.

“I’m not sure what to do,” César confesses after some breathless fumbling. Eduardo gratefully takes the chance to breathe; he can feel that he’s slipping dangerously, about to lose himself completely if he doesn’t stop soon.

He’d do everything if he could. But César’s hands, fisted in the hem of his shirt as they are and holding him so tight - for support, or to keep him in place as though he thinks Eduardo could possibly walk away now - are trembling in a way he’s never seen them before. César is nervous, he realises with a pang of affection and guilt, a strange twist of love and embarrassment and maybe even pity that unfurls in turn.

Come to think of it, why did he ask César to stay? Why didn’t he just walk him out before his shower? And why did César agree to it, of all things? He should stop it now, his mind shouts at him. What did he think he was going to achieve with this? He wants, he wants, but that’s all he knows. What about César? What was his take on all of this that is unwinding between them?

“We don’t have to do anything,” Eduardo says, reaching down to brush his fingers against César’s temple, right where his neatly trimmed sideburns are starting to go grey. He looks into César’s eyes as he does so, appreciating that they’ve never looked like this before, so wide and liquid and vulnerable.

César leans into his touch for a second before looking up, and then the bright spark that Eduardo loves so much is back in his eyes.

“But you want to,” César says. 

Confession time. There’s no point trying to pretend otherwise now, not when the desire is searing through him like this.

“I do.” 

“Good,” César replies, matter-of-factly. “I do too.” 

Relief floods Eduardo; his own selfishness surprising him. 

César turns his head to kiss the palm of his hand. “But you need to show me,” he says.

So Eduardo goes back to kissing him until they’re both boneless and shaking. Their breaths mix, intoxicating, sending a throbbing lightness to fill his limbs and his head. Eduardo guides César’s hands to his hips; already the blood is coursing and rushing through his body, the heat building deep within him starting to drive him on and on.

He undoes the buttons of César’s shirt and peels it from him, kissing the bare skin it reveals - from his neck to his collarbone, chest, breastbone, and lower - until César finally sits before him, shirtless and panting now. Eduardo takes his hand to lead him back to his bedroom, where he’s ashamed, suddenly, of the terrible mess that awaits them. 

There is a stack of books on his bedside, and more on the floor when he had run out of space and couldn’t be bothered buying a proper bookshelf. His clothes hang haphazardly in the open wardrobe, and piles of laundry are building up like cities to wait until he has the time to take them to the laundrette. All around them are boxes still unboxed from the move. He suddenly worries that all these signs and evidence will show just how much of his life revolved solely around César and maybe that might scare him off.

But César doesn’t seem to notice, all his attention trained laser-sharp on Eduardo. Eduardo pushes him back gently until he’s seated again, on the edge of the bed this time. As César follows him, wordlessly sweet and obedient, his own heart feels like it’s racing out of his chest. Everything happening so fast yet slow at the same time and his head is starting to swim.

As always, César’s touch grounds him, brings him back to himself. It’s only when his hands travel up and down the length of his spine that he realises there’s a deep angry ache blossoming between his shoulder blades, probably from when one of the siege sargeants had grabbed him to wrangle him out of the prison. It’s only going to get worse tomorrow, he knows. But he can ignore it for now - or so he thinks until increased pressure from César’s searching hands makes him wince.

César, of course, catches on immediately.

“Eduardo,” he warns, and it’s amazing how he’s managed to steady his voice into a slightly chiding tone when just seconds ago he’d been gasping into Eduardo’s mouth. “You’re hurt?”

“It’s nothing much,” Eduardo says automatically. “The paramedics said there might be bruises, that’s all. Must have been during the escape.”

César fixes him with a look, eyes narrowed and lips set in a tight worried line. Eduardo almost smiles, realising that’s exactly how he would react if their roles were reversed. He wants to kiss away the worry, so he does, even as the pain flares up again when he moves.

César pushes him away gently. “Are you sure?” He’s looking deep into Eduardo’s eyes now, his hands soft but steady as they hold Eduardo’s face.

“Trust me,” Eduardo whispers.

“You’re the only one in the world I do.”

Eduardo never knew his heart could feel this way, like a stopping wet thing of emotion barely holding together around a priceless core. He loves César so much, he thinks stupidly. So much.

That he was in love with César, there was never any doubt. But despite his overwhelming love, he had never quite dared to dream of César in this way: a physical, heaving beautiful living thing, something of flesh and blood and desire and all the mess that came with it.

That César is there, breathtaking and bare-skinned and shivering in the cold, sitting on the edge of his bed before him as though he was there for Eduardo to do with as he pleased. 

There is nothing for Eduardo to do but to go to his knees before him. 

Again, time is starting to fragment. There is the jangle of a belt buckle coming undone, the sing-song taunt of a zip giving way, fabric rustling as it slips down and away from skin. Before long, César is there in front of him, completely exposed, his chest heaving even as he meets Eduardo’s eyes steadily. 

Eduardo, for the most part, has gone past the point of any doubt or fear now. César reaches out to embrace him, helping him out of his shirt at the same time.

He draws closer to César, settling between his legs. He runs his palms appreciatively up César’s calves, dips his head to press a kiss to the inside of his thighs-- first by the knees and then higher and higher until he hears César’s breath hitch in anticipation. 

And then his mouth is on César’s cock, carefully easing the hard length of him in. The way the muscles of César’s solid thighs tense and spasm under his palms goes straight to his own desire, stoking a fire inside him that he knows he’s rapidly losing control of.

César lets out a cry like something caught between a gasp and a sigh, deep and desperate, and that’s enough to make Eduardo will his eyes open to sneak a look at the man he’s loved so despondently for so many years. César’s own eyes are blown wide open and fixed intently on Eduardo between his legs, not screwed shut in pleasure or shame like Eduardo had been afraid they would be.

When their eyes meet, he feels César swell and stiffen in his mouth almost instantly. He responds in kind, sheer will keeping his hand from snaking down to relieve himself from the pressure building unbearably between his own legs.

“I think I always--” César’s voice is close to a low moan now, bereft of his usual strength and clarity. “Always, Eduardo. Wanted you.”

This is probably the only thing that could make Eduardo stop now. He freezes with his lips poised just around the head of César’s cock, causing César to whine helplessly and lift his hips in an involuntary attempt to nudge himself deeper into the wet heat of Eduardo’s mouth.

“Sorry,” César gasps, as though he’s surprised by the audacity of his own need, but Eduardo lets him; lets him slide past his lips, over his tongue and into his throat with a grateful cry, even as his thoughts race to process what he just heard. He’d never even considered what César thinks when he looks at him-- never even imagined that César could look at him and see something he wanted. Eduardo is too tall and too messy, too prone to anger in his devotion, too passionate. But all this while, he realises with sobbing shame, César had seen something like what Eduardo had seen in him, had looked at him the way he’d looked at César, and Eduardo had never dared notice.

Even now César is touching him as though he’s a precious desired thing. His fingers trail down Eduardo’s face like he’s trying to map the contours of a hallowed land until they come to rest, feather-light and reverent, at the corner of his mouth where the skin is stretched taut around him, lips slick, swollen and aching. It’s a lewd thing, but César looks like he’s gazing upon something wondrous and beloved.

Eduardo lowers his eyes again and focuses on taking César as deep as he can, making sure to lavish on equal attention with his tongue, lips, mouth. The sounds that come from César are unlike anything he’d ever seemed possible of producing and it drives Eduardo on like some ancient spell. He is losing himself in this as much as César appears to be, he thinks. César trades between gasps and moans, and then there’s a strangled shuddering cry from him, and his fingers scrabble for traction against the hair at the back of Eduardo’s head, almost forceful enough to hurt, as he comes hard and deep down Eduardo’s throat.

Even after he comes, his fingers never give up their hold on Eduardo. They keep him in place, stroking and soothing, from temple to jaw. Eduardo’s entire body doesn’t know what to do with this, with his blood rushing like a thunderstorm in his ears and the taste of César on his tongue. He feels raw - his eyes still watering from the exertion and his lips throbbing and hot - and tender; such unbearable melting tenderness for the man whose fingers still convulse in his hair, who is still quivering in his mouth.

César’s ragged breathing eventually slows. Eduardo pulls away and rests his inflamed cheek against the cool skin of César’s thigh, catching his own breath as César strokes his head lovingly.

Touch always came easy to them - a steadying touch on the wrist to calm down, a hand on the small of his back, heads crowding in over a new document as they sit pressed together at a desk - but never like this. Never so imbued with meaning and emotion, never leaving a trail of sparks where they touched.

“I wanted you,” César says again, and the note of wonder in it makes it sound as though he’s saying it for himself and not just Eduardo. So It wasn’t just something said in the heat of passion, Eduardo thinks with relief. “If you died without knowing it, I don’t think I could ever be happy again.” 

César tugs him up to sit next to him on the edge of the bed. Eduardo has just a second to catch his breath before César is crawling on top of him, crushing into him, his hand going straight to the point of desire in Eduardo’s lap.

Eduardo has wanted this for so long, without ever wishing for it to ever happen, that he cries out as soon as César touches him. César tries to calm him with soothing kisses pressed to his shoulder, but his hand works and works, and Eduardo’s mind is spiralling out of control again. His own hands are greedy across the splay of César’s skin: they want, they want, they want. They pull him so close, as close as he can be, and César just goes along eagerly with it.

This is how César holds him, loving yet firm, in place as his mouth and hand stroke and soothe, stirring up his blood like nothing before. His mouth, at times sweet and then insistent, teases the sensitive skin of Eduardo’s bared throat. The heat builds and pools in Eduardo’s belly, sinking lower and lower until it’s begging to spill forth. 

Even so, even as some strange primal reflex makes him drive his hips up into the deliciously tight grasp of César’s fingers again and again and again, Eduardo knows this is far more than the simple mechanics of lust and biology. This is something much more, and much more dangerous, for the way his heart swells and twists at the mere touch with of César’s hand, for the too tender way César is touching him at all. He yields completely, wanting and ravenous, to César’s equally hungry touch and lets loose whatever desperate cries it calls forth from him, lets it take whatever it wants from him, body and heart and soul. 

César seems entranced by the sounds he’s wringing out of Eduardo. He keeps up the pace, his hands working tirelessly, relentlessly, until Eduardo’s vision damn near whites out. 

Throughout all of this this, César is silent, betrayed only by his harsh ragged breaths that speed up as he watches Eduardo come apart under his own hands.

 

 

After it all, César is dozing next to him, his head a solid weight on Eduardo’s chest as Eduardo keeps a protective arm wrapped around his shoulders. Sitting up against the headboard of his bed, with César asleep in his arms, Eduardo feels as though his heart is about to swell to bursting with softness and love. 

César shifts slightly in his sleep to nestle closer, and Eduardo marvels at the absurdity of his life: he’d gone from being held hostage at gunpoint in an insane farce of a prison to lying in bed with the love of his life (who also happened to be the President of Colombia) - all in a single night. 

He marvels also at the soft tickle of César’s hair against his bare skin, the warmth and weight of him, and the slow peaceful huffs of his breath. It hits Eduardo immediately: an unrelenting wave of greed and illogical unreasonable wants. He wants to keep César in his bed, he wants to kiss him to sleep and fall asleep with his arms around his own bruised body.

But it has to end somewhere, he knows. He presses a gentle kiss to the top of César’s head to wake him. 

“I wish you could stay forever,” he says truthfully, looking down into César’s sleep-bleary face, his mind already filing it away as the sweetest thing he’ll ever see. Eduardo realises he’s never seen César like this, softened by sleep, sex and affection. It makes him dizzy enough that he has to pause before he can continue to speak. “But what will the guys downstairs think if you don’t come out till morning?”

César sits up now, but he doesn’t move away from where he’s plastered against Eduardo’s side. He offers Eduardo a little smile.

“They’ll probably think it was about time,” he says simply.

Eduardo stares at him, confused. About time? Time for what?

César only smiles back in return. “What, you never heard the rumours?”

“Rumours? About us?”

César bursts out laughing heartily at this, the most open mirth he’s shown all night. “They really took pains to hide it from you, didn’t they? Sandoval the terror, you strike again!”

“Wait, what rumours?” Eduardo demands, starting to feel a little like an indignant parrot. 

“The rumours that I’m desperately in love with you.” César can’t stop smiling, it seems. His entire face is alight with amusement, so different from how beaten down he’d looked earlier in the evening.

Eduardo just gapes dumbly. “Huh? Not the other way around?”

This only makes César laugh harder, even as he throws his arms around Eduardo. “My Eduardo, you really are so wonderful,” he says, sincere around the laughter. 

“Did you know?” Eduardo asks, because he can’t help himself. He’s giddy with it, this strange swooping love that makes him feel weightless and unstoppable. “How I felt about you?”

“Sometimes I thought I did. But I thought I was just seeing what I wanted.” César is looking at him, that burning intense hope in his eyes again - the one that is pleading for something, pleading for Eduardo to say something and confirm his hopes.

He remembers that he was never going to tell César how he felt. It hovers now, dangerous; every cell in his body afire with the truth of it. But he can’t say it. Even after all this, even when the real gravity of his feelings is humming in the air between them, it still has to remain unsaid, locked away and safe.

So Eduardo settles for another truth, a more painful but safer one. “We’d better be careful about those rumours, César. They’ll use whatever they can against us and this one won’t look good at all.” It wipes the smile off César’s face, and it hurts Eduardo to dampen the mood but César’s safety matters more. More, anyway, than whatever happiness he thought he could pull from this.

“I know,” César says, serious now. Still he kisses Eduardo again - slower, sleepier, and less desperate but all the sweeter for it - and makes Eduardo almost take back what he said about being careful. Almost.

“I’ll go,” César says at last, when they finally manage to break apart for a few seconds. “I wanted you to rest, and I don’t think you’ll get to do that if I stay.”

If swooning was actually a thing, Eduardo’s pretty sure he would have done that. Even after everything they had done, his heart still leaps into his throat when César stops to rest his forehead on the bony line of his shoulder for one last time, breathing slowly. Breathing him in.

“Rest well,” César commands again, but it comes out muffled soft and tender against Eduardo’s skin.

Even as he nods in reply, Eduardo knows he’s not going to be able to rest tonight— his mind is full of César and missing him already, his scent on the sheets, the sounds of his moans in his ears, the phantom feel of his body beneath his. 

 

 

What happens now? 

César still looks at him with the same inscrutable expression that Eduardo can now recognise as desire mixed with fondness and perhaps a bit of hope. It feels like nothing has changed, while everything has changed.

He finds himself thinking about it more than he really should. He lets his mind wonder at all the possibilities and lives they could lead, while his body dreams of how much further they could go.

He wants this to continue forever, if it can.

But if he ever wonders what César thinks about this, he never gets a chance to ask.

 

 

In the end, it rains on the day he leaves César.

It’s not like he ever expected it to go well, but at least he knows that César understands how fiercely protective he is, that his fury stems from love and that even though his fears often manifest in anger, they only ever had César’s well-being in mind.

But César had been too stunned, Eduardo imagines, that day in the palace to respond in any other way than the way he did. It was a reasonable reaction: Eduardo had sprung his resignation on him with no warning, and after he himself had had days to think about it.

Or months was more like it. Four months of being paraded in and out of humiliating interrogations to sort out this mess and all he’d thought about through it all was how to make sure none of this touched César. 

Some part of him probably knew the solution before his mind was ready to piece together the sacrifices it really entailed. But once it occurred to him, there was never any going back. He knew it was their only way out, as keep eenly as he knew it was never going to sit well with César. Still, meticulous as ever, he had planned everything he was going to say, every response to any way César would react.

César had no such advantage.

So Eduardo forgives him for the frozen, awkward way they had parted. A cold hand in his, a hug he had to lean into. And César in front of him, as stiff and unmoving as a wall of ice. Of course it had hurt, to look at him and see his face work as he struggled to contain his emotions, as he processed the magnitude of what Eduardo was doing. But whatever César was feeling or thinking at that moment doesn’t matter. Eduardo had done his job and César was safe, and that was enough - no matter how much it had hurt.

It’s simple; it makes sense. Love was to put the other beyond all else. Eduardo had always always been prepared for that eventuality, and the conviction doesn’t fade a bit even as he stares into the truth of it.

What he wasn’t prepared for though, was for César to call.

It’s late; he’s spent the evening after work immediately trying to forget the awfulness of his resignation by putting together plans on where to go next. He thinks he might visit his parents at last before going to New York to finally get his PhD, and he’s looking up some scribbled notes about potential universities and programs when the phone rings.

It’s César.

For the first time since he met César, he feels an itching desire to be selfish for once. He really, really doesn’t want to hash this out over the phone, to put them both through hell again when he’s still smarting and raw from earlier in the day. He had thought that horrible last meeting with César would be the end of it— it had felt like he was suffocating the entire time but he’s done it and now it should be over and he shouldn’t have to feel the cracks in his chest ripping open again when they’d barely had any time to heal.

“I can’t accept it, Eduardo,” César keeps saying, stubborn and pleading. “It’s not right.”

“There’s no other choice,” he returns, equally stubborn.

He can hear the anguish but also the acceptance in César’s harsh exhale.

“Sometimes I swear you are the only good thing to come of this mess,” César says bitterly.

“Don’t say that,” Eduardo pleads. It chills him more than the cold metal muzzle of a gun pressed against the base of his spine. “The entire country is better because of you. They need you.”

“I need you,” César almost hisses, before schooling his tone into something a little less incendiary. “Please, what am I going to do without you?”

Eduardo considers telling him that if he doesn’t accept this resignation, there’ll be nothing for either one of them to do at all. “It’s the only way,” he ends up saying instead, not caring if he’s getting repetitive.

“I can’t change your mind, can I?” César sounds defeated now, the kind of defeated Eduardo would never want to hear from him under any other circumstance but this.

“No,” Eduardo says, simply. 

“You know what this means? What will happen?”

He does. Of course he does. It meant that everything he had ever done for the country would now be forever invalidated, tainted by his supposed insubordination. It meant never working for Colombia again. Never working with César again. Somehow he finds that any of that doesn’t hurt as much as the knowledge that people will think that César was foolish enough to be he disobeyed and disrespected by him, the last person that should ever have done that. Still, he reasons, it’s better than the alternative, which would see César himself disgraced.

“I know,” he says at last.

César’s responding sigh would have broken his heart, if he wasn’t so sure that this outcome was the one that would serve César better.

“Why would you do this?” César asks, his voice so shattered with finality that for the first time that day, Eduardo pauses.

He should just tell César the truth, he thinks. What he’s done - effectively destroy his life and career to protect César - already all but proved the true terrible depth of his love, so what’s the harm in telling him now? And he’s never going to see César again, he’s sure. He’s going to be far away enough that he can’t do any harm by telling the truth. 

If he tells him, they’ll both get the peace and closure they needed. Better than César blaming himself, anyway, for what was something that just couldn’t be assigned any blame at all. At least now he’ll know it came from Eduardo entirely; that none of this was his fault. 

It also fits in a depressingly poetic way: the greatest act of love Eduardo can commit will doom this relationship that never stood a chance from the start anyway. By loving César, he’ll make sure they never actually get to love each other.

As soon as he thinks that though, even as he accepts the solid unshakeable truth of it, he finds that he can’t stop the tears from starting behind his eyes, as sudden and as immutable as a summer storm. They slip down his cheeks, leaving a trail of sorrow and pity in their damp wake. 

He pinches the bridge of his nose to try to stem the tide of emotion, and steels himself to finally tell the truth.

“I love you,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> [this entire post](http://liaduval.tumblr.com/post/157661548483/so-i-rewatched-narcos-the-other-day-and-realised).


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